Dennae Hawkins has a passion for history.
When Hawkins talks about growing up in Detroit on Warrington Street behind Baker’s Keyboard Lounge, 20510 Livernois, her words are spoken in such a reverent tone that it is crystal clear that Baker’s is a special place, even if the listener knows little about the jazz music Baker’s has been famous for since 1934.
And just as Detroiters through the years have proudly called Baker’s “the world’s oldest jazz club,” the adult version of Hawkins takes special pride in saying that she is the co-owner of the only store in Detroit that is licensed to sell “Divine Nine” clothing and other merchandise associated with the historically Black Greek-letter organizations that are members of the National Pan-Hellenic Council. The renowned fraternities and sororities that make up the “Divine Nine” include Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, Omega Psi Phi fraternity, Delta Sigma Theta sorority, Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, Zeta Phi Beta sorority, Sigma Gamma Rho sorority and Iota Phi Theta fraternity.
“In the end, we all serve the community,” said Hawkins, who graduated from Cass Tech (Class of 1987) and Florida A&M University, and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. “This is for life; it’s not something we do in college and then we’re done. After we graduate, we still serve our sorority or fraternity, which means we serve our community.
“If you look at the underlying principles of all of our organizations, the principles are scholarship, service and sister and brotherhood. Those are the founding principles of each and every one of our organizations. And at the end of the day, we’re at each other’s service events and programs; you’ll see everybody. So through this business, we instill pride. But we’re still out in the community ourselves and we still serve.”
During the early afternoon on Oct. 1, Hawkins spoke from the location where the in-person operations of her business are performed on the Avenue of Fashion, at 18979 Livernois, the home of Tauntus Cosmetics Beauty Bar. In addition to selling a wide assortment of items related to Black Greek-letter organizations, the shop also offers merchandise related to other service organizations and the spirit of Detroit in general; along with jewelry, boutique clothing, purses, handbags, custom wreaths, Tauntus Cosmetics by Nadonya and more.
To best understand the store’s vast, eclectic offerings — as well as the unique business name — requires getting to know the person who accompanies Hawkins during much of her community outreach: her business partner Nadonya Muslim, who graduated from Lutheran West (Class of 1985) and Tennessee State University, and is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
Roughly a year before Hawkins and Muslim first met during a meeting for assistant principals when they were both employed by Detroit Public Schools Community District, Muslim, inspired by a playful comment made by her youngest daughter, Starr-Ambrosia Muslim, about the vast amount of different lip glosses she owned, was conducting extensive research which led to the creation of her own cosmetics line. Muslim, who obtained the building where the business is housed and named the business Tauntus after a good-looking family member, applied those same research skills to discover what was needed to receive and maintain authorization from each fraternity and sorority to sell their paraphernalia at the Tauntus store on Livernois and online.
Muslim says that her previous life experiences prepared her well for what she is doing today.
“I’m an educator and I have a degree in history,” explained Muslim, who traveled to faraway destinations, including Dubai and Thailand, while researching how to launch a cosmetics line. “Even when I was a teenager, I went to Barbizon Modeling School. I also used to take little eye shadow palettes and my dad’s secretary would put my name on them and I would sell them at Lutheran West. So, I have always sold makeup. But to actually have my own line; I never dreamed that would happen. But when my daughter said I should start my own makeup line, it just sparked something in me.”
In between creating the cosmetics line and completing the steps necessary to sell items related to Greek-letter organizations, Muslim and Hawkins faced a situation in 2020 that required an instant “spark” of creativity and innovation when COVID-19 posed a threat to the survival of their business. At that point, as Muslim puts it, “masks became the makeup,” which described how Tauntus pivoted from selling primarily jewelry and cosmetics to conceptualizing and then selling face masks that honored Detroit public high schools and Historically Black Colleges And Universities (HBCUs).
“You know how we feel about our high schools here in Detroit,” said Hawkins, who expressed deep appreciation for graduates of Cass Tech and Tennessee State, for leading the way in mask purchases. “If I say we sold 20,000 face masks, I might be underestimating the total. Repping your high school is big, and people who attended closed high schools in Detroit also were calling and asking, ‘When are you going to do ours?’ ”
On the afternoon of Oct. 3, Detroiter Melisa Ingram had an opportunity to experience the full scope of what Hawkins and Muslim offer today, which now adds up to hundreds of items at the Livernois location. However, Ingram was most interested in just one item — a long cardigan sweater with Greek letters representing Gamma Phi Delta on it. The sweater also displayed the year 1943 to represent when the sorority was founded at Detroit’s Lewis College of Business. Ingram, who bought the sweater to wear at a leadership conference in Atlanta, said she was happy to complete her conference wardrobe at a Detroit store on the Avenue of Fashion.
“The store is in the city and the owners do activities with people in the community around them,” said Ingram, who received encouragement from the store owners about the situation she was facing as a Blue Cross Blue Shield worker on strike. “They are community ambassadors, and they like to deal with community issues as well.”
Ingram was expecting to see Muslim at the conference because Muslim was flying out to Atlanta on Wednesday with a heap of related merchandise that she hoped to sell at the event.
Hawkins, who also is an assistant principal at Sampson-Webber Leadership Academy, will represent the business in Detroit while Muslim is away. And as the afternoon was turning to evening on Oct. 3, Hawkins said that Detroit is a mighty fine place to be from her vantage point.
“Detroit hustles harder,” Hawkins said, summing up the energy that she feels from her fellow business owners on the Avenue of Fashion. “Having grown up on Warrington, watching the heyday, to the nothing, and now watching the resurgence makes this a special time.
“We’re trying to keep with the spirit of what the Avenue of Fashion used to be. You still need a shoe repair store; you still need a cleaners; you still need restaurants and an optical center. We’re trying to keep those small businesses — those mom-and-pop places — alive and well in the city. And we just hope our business can become a staple as well.”
Scott Talley is a native Detroiter, a proud product of Detroit Public Schools and lifelong lover of Detroit culture in all of its diverse forms. In his second tour with the Free Press, which he grew up reading as a child, he is excited and humbled to cover the city’s neighborhoods and the many interesting people who define its various communities. Contact him at: [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @STalleyfreep. Read more of Scott’s stories at www.freep.com/mosaic/detroit-is/. Please help us grow great community-focused journalism by becoming a subscriber
